My First Magical Friend
by Snarky64
Summary: After the War, Harry takes possession of the house in Godric's Hollow. Whilst going through his mother's things, he finds a small silver snake, suitable for a young girl's charm bracelet, with a little label saying 'From Sev'.


**Written for The Teachers' Lounge Christmas gift exchange, for iwright.**

_**Prompt: **__After the War, Harry takes possession of the house in Godric's Hollow. Whilst going through his mother's things, he finds a small silver snake, suitable for a young girl's charm bracelet, with a little label saying 'From Sev'._

~oOo~

**My First Magical Friend**

**_Christmas 1979_**

Lily gently helped James remove his robe and he hissed in pain as he sat on the edge of the bed. Her charm bracelet brushed his face and James snorted as he held her wrist and fingered the charms on the bracelet. Then he stopped suddenly at one in particular. His already weak smile faded.

"I'm telling you, Lily. Snape was one of them ... one of the Death Eaters we fought tonight."

"You can't know that, James. You said yourself - they were masked."

"You think I don't know his style? The sorts of dark curses he uses?" James snorted derisively. "Snivelly's a Death Eater, Lily! You have to accept he's Voldemort's man now. Take that thing off, Lily. Get rid of it."

Lily bridled. She didn't like to be told what to do, even though she hadn't seen Sev since they left school; hadn't spoken to him for years. But that final break from what they used to have was just too hard.

"After everything you know about him now – what he called you! It wasn't just a slip of the tongue, you know. He meant it. It's what Death Eaters think. Why do you still keep it?" James asked plaintively as he grasped her hand. He could never confess to Lily that this final remnant of her incomprehensible friendship with Snivellus irked him beyond all reason. It was almost as if she could never truly be his whilst she held some affection for Snape, no matter how small.

"A keepsake, James. A remembrance of my childhood. Things were different then. _He_ was different then – my first magical friend."

"- Who thought you had dirty blood! What kind of friend is that?" James snapped, as he pulled off his boots and socks.

"That's just not true, James. Please don't. I don't know how I would have fitted in without Sev to help me learn about my magic and Hogwarts, and to tell me that I wasn't a freak like Tuney used to say."

She sat heavily on the bed next to James.

"We would have looked after you! _I _would have looked after you. You were always going to make friends with your lovely nature, not like him – sour and dark."

"You never understood what he had to contend with - why he was the way he was."

"Go on then! I'm listening," sneered James, challenging her.

Lily regarded James, all the stories of Sev in her head, swirling in her mind. But she knew, no matter what she told James, he would never understand what Sev came from – the drive he had to succeed in the teeth of opposition of (well, it was true, wasn't it?) people like her husband – privileged and entitled, secure in his place in the world. When James talked like this, she felt it most – a fraction of the weight of oppression that Sev must have felt all his young life.

Sev had neither manners nor charm; he was unprepossessing to look at and his family was so impoverished in so many ways, not just a lack of money. Sev always seemed so ... unloved. As a child, she adopted Sev like a stray puppy, quickly coming to know that she was the centre of his world.

Now, with every passing year, Lily was haunted by the spectre of the sallow boy, her special friend with his avaricious love for her. She supposed she always knew how he felt about her. It had made the slow descent into his betrayal of her so very painful. She could still think of that day when their increasingly frequent rows came to a head and feel the hot flush of shame crawl up her cheeks when he called her that name: the truth of what he thought of her, finally out for everyone to hear. So she had smirked at him, the way his friends smirked at her when they said she had filthy blood. Then she had jibed at him about his old underwear. She knew wasn't dirty, just dreadfully old and over-washed because his parents didn't care or couldn't afford to replace it. She knew it would wound him, but he had wounded her. Then, she had left him – left him with his enemies, those boys who delighted in tormenting him. Well, let them: if he hated her so much, she could do the same.

Even as she thought of it now, she felt that ugly flush of shame. She knew he always lashed out when he was scared. She had always known that. But she couldn't forgive it at the time, and now was far too late. Too late in so many ways.

"I don't know why you wear that thing anyway. It's only silver and they're so out of fashion now," James said nastily, flicking the charm bracelet. "It looks cheap."

"James! You know I can name every charm on here: who bought it for me and for when! I couldn't get rid of it. I can't believe ..." Her voice thickened and she bit her bottom lip. Sometimes, he could be so thoughtless.

She looked at the eighteenth birthday key from her parents. There wouldn't be one to match for her twenty-first. A champagne glass from Tuney. A dog from Peter. She smiled. Sirius and Remus had argued whether it was Padfoot or Moony. It didn't look like either to her, but she had laughed at their argument. An intricate pentangle from James himself: bespoke, she was sure. There were many others too, but he had picked on the one small snake. She winced at the truth of that.

James stormed off to the shower and Lily sat at her dressing table, unclasped her charm bracelet and laid it out on the glass with care. She unhooked the charm and held it close to look at it.

Her eyes suddenly stung as she remembered the poor, awkward boy, reflexively unpleasant and with no social graces, but how he used to smile crookedly at her. His odd face would transform as he would tell her about magic, the sorts of magic his mother could do, the magic he would do when he grew up and how talented Lily was. He had made her feel so very special.

Lily sighed.

And then she remembered that small silver signet ring that had belonged to his grandmother. He had melted it down to shape this small charm for her bracelet.

**_December 1970_**

Severus was exhilarated. In one of his mother's old second year school books, he found the charms for decorative arts. He had so wanted to give Lily a present to show her just how special she was. He had never really had a friend before. There were the boys who played in the street, but his mother wouldn't let him play with them. They were rough Muggles – like his father. All they ever did was play football in the streets anyway. He asked his mother once if she had any magical friends with children like him. Just once though – she'd given him a sharp slap and told him not to be nosey. Then she smirked unkindly at her own joke at his expense.

In every way, Severus looked like his mother; in every way but one, that was: he had his father's hooked nose. Even as a child, his nose made his face look beaky and unkind. He didn't have his father's large stature though or his piercing blue eyes. He seemed to have everything unfavourable from each of his parents, and each of his parents seemed to enjoy pointing out the deficiencies of the other in their only child. What they despised in each other, they made known to him.

But not Lily. She never seemed to smirk at him, at his nose, at his face, at his clothes ... at his poverty that was so obvious to all. She never called him names, like his parents and his neighbours.

Lily looked at him in wonder. She hung on every word he said and crooned with every book he showed her and it made him feel so ... accomplished. Yes, that was it. Worthwhile and accomplished. She would hold his hand sometimes as they walked to the playground, and sometimes she would swing their joined arms. He would blush and tell her to stop (but he never meant it). He, in turn, simply worshipped her. His friend. It was a glorious thing to have - a friend of one's own. His first magical friend.

They would find one of the grottoes in the municipal park that was out of the way, and they would read to each other from "Hogwarts: A History" and spell books Severus had sneaked out of his mother's old school trunk in the loft. They would show each other small bits of wandless magic, and Severus was so proud of Lily's talent. _He_ had discovered her, and she was _his_ friend.

Now, with Christmas coming up, he had worried so over a present for Lily. Obviously, he had no money. He didn't get pocket money like Lily did. Imagine getting _two shillings_ a week! That was a fortune. She would buy a bag of sweets on Saturday morning and bring it with her when they met and share them with him. Sometimes the shame of it made him crabby with her, but she'd just laugh her pretty tinkling laugh and say, "But Sev, you share all your books with me! It's the least I can do."

Now he'd found this book of spells, he was sure he could make her something really special – just for her. Her parents had bought her a charm bracelet for her last birthday and she adored it. He thought it was rather silly and girlish but Lily's eyes sparkled when she showed it to him and enumerated the charms upon it. He'd love to have something from himself on it and imagined her telling other people, "And this one – this one is from my best friend, Sev." It made his tummy flip.

~oOo~

Once in a blue moon, his father persuaded his mother to come with him to the Social Club. She hated going but, if she agreed to go on high days and holidays, Tobias Snape would leave her be for the rest of the time. Severus knew his mother loathed the other wives and his father called her "all fur coat and no knickers" and said she gave herself "airs and graces". He wasn't sure what any of it meant, but this night they would both be out, and his mother would leave her wand behind and that was all he cared about.

He watched them leave the house from his bedroom window and followed their progress down the grimy, narrow street. As soon as he considered it safe, he bounded down the stairs and snatched up his mother's wand and then scurried down to their tiny coal cellar.

There wasn't much in there. The coal was in a sorry heap in the corner, bounded by his mother's spell, and the rest of the cellar was hers for her potion-making. His parents had an uneasy truce over the space. She didn't do her "hellion's trickery" anywhere else in the house and he would stay out of the cellar. Severus was allowed in to watch her brew as long as he did exactly as she told him and didn't get in her way.

She had progressed to letting him prepare ingredients for her with her silver blade. If he did it carefully and precisely, exactly as she instructed, she sometimes let him use her wand to prepare those ingredients which required magical preparation. He took every opportunity to help her because there, in that cellar, he could forget about his father and his hatred of magic, use a wand and listen to his mother talk about the magical world – the world to which he belonged – the world that would welcome him when the time came.

Severus took out his salvaged scrap of paper with his drawing of the snake and then looked at the sterling silver signet ring on his middle finger. It had belonged to his father's mother and she had given it to him herself, telling her son to leave the boy be and not to be stealing it for beer money. Severus did feel bad about using it. It was the only real gift he'd ever received from someone in his family. But it was for Lily, and it was all he had to use. He was sure Granny would understand.

He lit the flame under his mother's smallest cauldron and, once at the required temperature, he dropped the signet ring in and incanted a charm over the silver that would help it to become molten. At exactly the right point, Snape took his mother's wand in one hand and incanting the spell from the book on decorative arts with his detailed drawing in front of him, he visualised in every detail as he worked the spell over the cooling silver drawing itself in to the sway shape of the snake and then, from the top, the clasp, then the eyes, the mouth and slitted nostrils then the scales, all gradually carving themselves onto the small silver form all the way down to the end of its tail.

It took in all about an hour and a half and Severus didn't think he had ever had such a headache as he had then. He cast a cooling charm and plucked the charm from the cauldron and placed it on the palm of his hand. Then with a soft cloth, he polished and polished until the charm shone so beautifully.

It was perfect.

His pride was huge that he had mastered the spells and produced this perfect present, but he couldn't rest on his laurels. Pocketing the little charm, he scoured the cauldron as his mother had taught him and checked everything was back where it should be then locked the cellar door and replaced his mother's wand on the mantle, pushing it with his finger to make sure it was just-so. Then he scuttled back upstairs to his small horde of saved tissue paper to wrap the charm and then hid it under a loose floorboard in his room. It was only two weeks to Christmas and for the first time he could remember, he had a reason to be excited.

~oOo~

"Where's me Mam's ring?" Tobias Snape growled as his son reached for a slice of bread at the dinner table.

The runt snatched his hand away as if he had been burnt and hid it under the table.

Like a snake himself, Tobias Snape's own hand shot out and grabbed the child's shoulder as the other hand pulled his son's hand away from under the table, squeezing it too hard.

"Where is it, you little ..."

"Tobias, don't," Eileen murmured, pressing her fingers to her temples. "Why do you always have to ..."

"Don't interrupt me, woman! That was me Mam's ring! I knew she should never have given it to him." At this point, he leant into his scrawny, worthless son, hooked nose to hooked nose and yanked him up by his wrist. Severus yelped in pain. The boy was such a cissy. "What, have you lost it? Sold it for smokes? Eh? Which was it?"

"I lost it, Dad. I'm sorry," the runt blubbed. The child disgusted him. So puny – just like his mother, and with the Devil's gifts too. He threw the child from him, turning his back on him when he cried out as he hit the floor. "Get to yer room, you little bastard. How dare you lose me Mam's ring."

He sat back in his chair and stabbed at his food, even scraping the boy's meagre helping onto his own plate with a grunt, trying to ignore the boy's stifled whimpers as that witch of a mother murmured some God-forsaken spell.

What Tobias Snape wanted most for Christmas was a proper wife and a proper son. He'd like to deny that book-loving runt was his. Huh, could hardly do that with that nose. He resolutely refused to turn as he heard his wife chivvying the child up the stairs, muttering at him to mind himself in the future and not to be so careless. The runt was due to go to school next year – boarding school, _if you please_, for the likes of him. Tobias rammed another forkful in his mouth angrily. Well, at least he wouldn't have to pay for the wretch's food any more.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

~oOo~

Severus held on to his tears. He had learnt young that crying annoyed his father. His mother had healed the dislocation but it still hurt. She didn't have any bruise balm to spare for him – she sold everything she made to make extra money – her herbal remedies she called them – but money was too tight to spare some. The bruise would be bad tomorrow, but he'd done it: he'd got away with the lie.

All there remained to do was to wrap her present and take it with him on Christmas Eve when he'd been invited to tea. He smiled even at the thought of Lily's house and the warmth of their sitting room with paper chains and foil decorations festooning the room, and their gaudy tree, bedecked with tinsel and baubles. He had gawped when he'd first seen it. There was no Christmas tree at Spinner's End, just a few Christmas cards discarded on the mantle after a cursory glance.

Severus couldn't wait for Christmas Eve.

~oOo~

The children knelt in front of the Christmas tree, facing each other. Mrs. Evans had given them home-made sausage rolls and cherryade and there were tins of sweets, just open for anyone to help themselves! Severus had eaten so much, he felt a little queasy. Or maybe it was because he was scared now that she would hate his present. He had opened his present from Lily and it had been wonderful, but what he really wanted was to give her the charm and to see if she liked it – really liked it.

Lily giggled with excitement as he pulled the tiny package from his pocket and handed it over with trepidation and then watched as her small fingers deftly picked at the sellotape and then gasped as the small charm fell into her hand.

"Oh Sev!" she whispered and held the charm close to look at every detail. "It's so beautiful." Then she threw herself at him to hug him tightly. Severus released his breath in relief. She liked it! He was sure she liked it!

~oOo~

Lily was so excited to receive another charm. Everyone had charm bracelets – they were _de rigeur_, as Tuney kept saying as she swished her own around her wrist as she walked. Lily smiled as she turned over the small serpent in her hands remembered how Tuney had scowled when she saw it.

"Well, why would you want a snake?" she screeched. "Snakes are horrible, slimy creatures."

"Snakes aren't slimy at all, Tuney. Shows what you know!" Lily poked her tongue out at her sister. "Anyway –" Lily crossed her arms and stuck her nose in the air, "- a snake is the emblem of Slytherin House. It's the school house that Sev and I will go into when we go to Hogwarts.

"Silly made-up school for nasty little freaks!" Tuney spat. "The Snapes are all good-for-nothing liars. Everyone from Spinner's End is!" Tuney snatched the small snake from Lily's fingers. "This is probably stolen. I'm telling Mum that horrible boy is giving you stolen things!"

"It is not! It is not!" Lily sobbed, tears of frustration now running down her cheeks. "You're so horrid, Tuney. Sev made it for me! You give it back! You give it back right now! MUM!" Lily went to run out of the room, but Tuney grabbed her and threw the charm on the floor in front of her.

"There's your stupid charm. It's a nasty horrid cheap thing, anyway!" With that, Tuney flounced out of the room, her face red, just as Mrs. Evans reached the top of the stairs.

"What's going on here?"

Lily sniffed as she picked up the small snake.

"Nothing, Mum. Tuney was just being mean about Sev's present."

"She's just a little jealous, dear," Mrs. Evans said softly, stroking Lily's hair as she guided Lily back to her bedroom as Tuney slammed the door of hers.

"Don't slam the door, young lady!" called Mr. Evans from the sitting room below.

"How can she be jealous of Sev? He doesn't have anything _she _wants." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Nothing at all." Her large green eyes, still wet with tears, searched her mother's for an answer.

"Doesn't he?" her mother said, rather enigmatically. She hugged Lily to herself until Lily had stopped sobbing. Finally, Lily pulled herself away and Mrs. Evans stood and went over to Lily's small white dressing table and picked up her charm bracelet.

"Would you like me to put Sev's charm on here for you?"

"Yes please, Mummy," Lily smiled, only a trace of moisture now left in her eyelashes, and handed over the charm.

Mrs. Evans sat on the stool and held the small snake up to the light, noting all the small scales worked into the silver. Had that poor boy really been so skilled to work this silver himself? She made a small noise of approval as she turned it between her finger and thumb. Then, she found the small clasp at the top and looped it onto Lily's charm bracelet, next to the last charm she and her husband had bought for Lily's birthday, a delicate butterfly. She compared the two together carefully. The snake really was very detailed, with quite a beautiful curving movement. Bewitching, yes, that was the word.

Mrs. Evans knew Petunia was terribly spiteful about the young Snape boy, and – well – to be honest, sometimes, she and her husband worried about him too. About him and for him. And that was the point, wasn't it? It wasn't up for question that the boy was terribly neglected: his dreadful old cast-off clothes that were never intended for a child and he clearly bathed as rarely as his clothes were washed. He was rangy, underfed and unhealthy. But there was more: he was barely able to look her or her husband in the eye and his odd, reflexive quirks were indicative of something not right at home; probably very wrong indeed.

She didn't know for sure, but sometimes, he held himself as if he was in pain, but he never complained. Two weeks ago, she was sure she saw bruising at his bony wrist, but he'd covered his wrist quickly when he saw her looking and mumbled defensively about a tide mark. It wasn't dirt. She knew a bruise when she saw one. Why would Sev hide a bruise if it had been an accident?

She saw Sev's parents occasionally in town: his father, a brute of a man, and his sour sullen mother, thin and stooped, like her son. She wondered which one of them hit him, for she was sure one of them did. She'd like to give them a piece of her mind whenever she saw him looking furtive as he sneaked some biscuits from the plate and hid them in his overlarge coat pocket, or that wild, trapped look he had if she caught him by surprise, even if he was doing nothing wrong at all. Part of her wanted to hug Sev and keep him safe. She often wondered if she should call Social Services. "But it's not our business," her husband would say. "Don't get involved with the neighbours' private business. He's not your son, darling," her husband kept reminding her.

Sometimes, when he came to the house in those ghastly clothes, she'd think, "I could just pop to C&A and buy him a pair of trousers and a shirt and jumper in the January sales for his birthday, and a pair of sturdy shoes for Christmas. I'm sure that would be fine." "But it wouldn't be fine," her husband told her. Apparently, he thought it would offend his parents – offend their dignity – getting a hand-out to dress their son. "But it would be a present! After all, Sev takes a lot of care making presents for Lily." "And she buys presents for him," responded her husband. "If we buy him presents like that, we're obliging them to return it. Leave it alone, darling. Leave well alone."

Mrs. Evans was always leaving things well alone when it came to Sev. Sometimes, it nagged at her conscience, but she was sure her husband was right. After all, they wouldn't want people poking into their family either. Besides, if she made too much of a fuss, her husband would start on again about Sev being unsuitable for Lily, his background not being right or that horrible scenario he'd paint that if Sev was being hit, he'd hit Lily sooner or later because that was how he'd been brought up. She didn't believe Sev would do anything to hurt Lily. Not ever. They played together and made up a school of magic between them! She smiled at their vivid imaginations.

Mrs. Evans sighed and gave Lily a smile as she finished affixing the charm to the bracelet, and Lily stuck out her small wrist. Mrs. Evans undid the small lock clasp and placed it around Lily's wrist, as Lily beamed happily at the little snake.

"Thank you, Mummy," she said, gazing intently at the snake. "Did I tell you Sev made this for me? From that signet ring he used to wear." She held her hand down, modelling the bracelet for herself.

Mrs. Evans kissed her daughter's forehead, fairly sure one of Sev's parents had been unhappy about the use of that ring. She could well imagine that was how that bruise was come by.

"I think Sev spent a lot of time on that charm, Lily. It's very beautiful."

"It is, isn't it?" said Lily, happily, pleased to have her mother's approval of her friend, as she twirled, still looking at charm, catching the light with the others. "Sev is my very best friend!"

Sometimes, Lily's fierceness reminded her so much of herself. Sometimes though, fierceness wasn't enough.

**_Christmas 1979_**

Lily thought she had been such a loyal friend, but in the end, it hadn't been enough.

Lily laid the charm on the glass top of the dressing table. No. She wouldn't just 'get rid of it'. Sev had made it for her from his grandmother's signet ring - just for her, nine years ago.

She blinked a hot tear. How could he still make her feel so angry and hurt and ashamed? He pushed _her_ away. Her shoulders slumped. Perhaps. She wondered if he was happy being a Death Eater. Did it give him the respect he always craved? She sniffed unhappily. Still, how many people managed to stay friends with those from their childhood? She told herself there weren't many, especially if that friend was the sworn enemy of one's husband.

"Oh dear," she whispered. She didn't want to think about that; about how things might have been different if James and Sev could have got along. How James was such a fiercely loyal friend, but a fierce enemy too. Together, they might have convinced Sev away from that path he seemed destined for as soon as he got to school and fell in with those house-mates with their blood prejudices and hatred.

That was a hopeless way to think. It was done. It was past.

Sev had taught her so many things about herself, from the moment she had met him. He had told her she was a witch and told her everything he knew about magic and the magical world. But he had taught her other lessons too: ones that had not been intentional.

He had taught her that perhaps sometimes people couldn't surmount the difficulties they grew up with – the inadequacies that had been beaten into them. And he had taught her that children shouldn't be half-starved and wrapped in hand-me-down clothes so the other kids would snigger and bully them. Poor Sev. What chance did he have? Perhaps her best tribute to him would be to bring her own children up carefully and with love, but ensure they weren't cruel. Not 'entitled'. The word made her cringe.

She inhaled deeply and made her decision. Sev had been her friend once, in that golden place of childhood, and she wouldn't throw this emblem of that friendship away.

She reached to the bottom of the wardrobe where she kept the walnut carved box Sev had made her for that last Christmas before their OWLs for special Potions ingredients. Opening it up, she saw all the little tags from his presents over the years and picked up the one she thought was the oldest and tied it on the charm and placed it carefully in the box. She whispered the charm to lock it and pushed it to the back of the wardrobe.

It was done. It was past. But it always had a special place.

James came back into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, and Lily saw the bruises and cuts to his body from the fierce duel with the Death Eaters – with Sev.

"I'm sorry, Lily," he said, as he cupped her face. "It was just the fight, you know. I didn't mean to snap at you." James kissed her nose lightly and stroked the barest soft curve of her stomach where their child now grew.

**_Christmas 1998_**

"What is it, Harry?" asked Ginny, sitting on the side of the bed and starting to pick through the ornate box of trinkets and old, faded present labels that sat at Harry's side.

Harry turned the small snake over in his hand and then placed it on the dressing table carefully.

"It looks like a present – hand-made. But it's still got its tag on." Harry swallowed hard, remembering the neglected boy of the Pensieve memory with his ungainly, twitchy walk and his desperate demeanour.

"Perhaps Mum never liked it," said Harry sadly. "I wish I knew."

**~FIN~**


End file.
